Guilty verdict in murder of family of Ireland-based surgeon
Two men have been found guilty of murdering the wife and three children of an Ireland-based surgeon in a botched revenge attack.
Shehnila Taufiq, 47, her 19-year-old daughter Zainab, and sons Bilal, 17, and Jamal, 15, all died when a fire engulfed their house in Wood Hill, Leicester, in the early hours of September 13 last year.
Kemo Porter, 19, and Tristan Richards, 22, were found guilty of their murders at Nottingham Crown Court.
Shaun Carter, 24, was found not guilty of four counts of murder but guilty of four counts of manslaughter.
The father and husband in the family, Dr Muhammad Taufiq al-Sattar, worked as a neurosurgeon at a Dublin hospital and was in Ireland at the time of the fire.
Prosecutors alleged the fire was a “retribution process” for the fatal stabbing of Antoin Akpom, 20, hours earlier, but that the killers attacked the wrong house.
The jury is still considering charges of murder against Nathaniel Mullings, 19, Jackson Powell, 20, Aaron Webb, 20, Aaron Jeffers, 21 and a 17-year-old youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
During the two-month trial, the jury heard that football coach Mr Akpom had been stabbed in the back in a confrontation involving two 19-year-olds on September 12.
Richard Latham QC, prosecuting, said the defendants were friends of Mr Akpom, and claimed that hours later they mistakenly targeted the Taufiqs’ house believing it to be the home of one of the 19-year-olds involved in the confrontation.
The prosecutor said: ”They simply got the wrong house – a tragedy.”
